


Horses on the Hill

by starstag



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Friendship, Platonic Love, Platonic Relationships, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:27:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24289669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstag/pseuds/starstag
Summary: Funny, how friendships formed. Funny, how they exploded, seeming to burst out of nothing, but in actuality, they creeped like a young flame on tinder and grew as steadily as a sapling. You just don’t see it in the midst of everything.The beginnings of a great friendship: or, Tom Blake crowbars himself into Schofield's battered little heart. I love these gentlemen.
Relationships: Tom Blake & William Schofield
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Horses on the Hill

Funny, how friendships formed. Funny, how they exploded, seeming to burst out of nothing, but in actuality, they creeped like a young flame on tinder and grew as steadily as a sapling. You just don’t see it in the midst of everything. 

Companionship had always been a quiet affair for William Schofield. If your mates didn’t know they were your mates without you saying it out loud, then what business did you have hanging around them? 

No, true friendship just happened. If you were meant to be together, things would work out, and if they didn’t, then what use was it to worry? At least, that’s what he had told himself for years. Since his university years, perhaps. Or maybe before.

Of course, the war seemed intent on changing his perception. The war changed everything, even the little things he thought so intrinsic to his character that they were impossible to remove from his idea of himself. No, like the mud and the cold, the war forced itself into his personality and clung as stubbornly as the fleas.

He felt different, constantly, yet couldn’t quite lay his finger on how or why. It seemed some days passed in such a tremendous rush it was like suffocating. He wanted to scream for air, for space to think, but then again other days dragged on like a dull decade, and he had all the time in the world just with himself and his thoughts. 

He wasn’t alone. No, never. Lance Corporal William Schofield always had duties, orders to obey. It was different, after the Somme. Fewer familiar faces. Less attachment. It was hard to smile, and the bleak yet uncertain months that lay before him brought an uneasy sort of anxiety that left him exhausted enough to fall unconscious as soon as he stopped moving, yet kept his thoughts moving so quickly he barely got any sleep at all.

He liked most of the chaps. That was part of the problem. Part of him desperately wished he could get all chummy with the privates, even the painfully young ones he was too afraid to get to know too closely. The other officers, for the most part, seemed like fine gentlemen. A good many struck him as truly brave and fair, or at least were remarkably good at putting on a show of it. 

They were trying, nearly all of them, with every fiber of their being, and what was it all for? The struggle, the pain, the sleepless nights? A home he was too terrified to go back to? 

Perhaps, it would have been easier if he’d let himself get close to some chaps, after coming back from home. Or would that just have hurt more? There was Rogers, of course. The friend of a friend from his school days, a man he knew just well enough, but not so well as to know each other's secrets. At least not yet. That, surely, would come while one of them was choking on their own blood in a muddy crater. 

He had his own companions, who’d welcomed Schofield cheerfully enough, and they all seemed to want to get to know them better, but he couldn’t help but hold them at arm's length. It wasn’t for lack of trying. Of course, he’d sit with them, eat with them, listen to them as they talked, but it was hard to do more. It was hard to open himself when it felt for all the world like the fragile walls he'd built were the only thing really keeping him safe.

It was easier, he thought, to focus on the present and then immediately do his very best to forget that had happened. It was surprisingly easy, to do what he was told, to exist in an eternal now, to let everything pour over him like water off a duck’s oiled back. 

It started, perhaps, when he stepped back into France, after he’d gone home, after the Somme. Or maybe it began in the days leading to his departure, when he’d become cold and sullen. Or maybe, and this scared him the most, he had always been doomed to enter this veiled state of numbness, like so many other men. Well, no matter when it started, certain things just came to him with more difficulty, like his memory and emotions were all locked up behind sorrow and fear, and only certain things were allowed to pass.

The moment his boots struck French soil, he’d been filled with a deep sense of dread that he had been unable to shake since. But, he had to continually remind himself, they had more important things to do. 

So they marched through the mud, and he didn’t remember how long they’d been on their feet. And he slid the bolt and the crack of the rifle grew meaningless, and he didn’t remember. Days, then months rolled by, and he barely remembered any of them. It didn’t bring him any peace. 

Reality fell upon him sharply when a letter came, the writing graceful and familiar enough that it almost made him cry. 

He held it in shaking hands like it was porcelain, like it would hurt him. Perhaps it did, in a way. Again and again he read the words with a reverence that belied his bitter, numbed demeanor, until the sentences had almost no meaning at all. Then he folded it as carefully as one would fold an heirloom shawl, and it went inside the blue tin, tucked between the photographs. 

His eyes were red when he returned to Rogers and the others. They must have seen, by the way they glanced sympathetically at him, then left him alone for the rest of the evening. That almost hurt even more, and he didn’t sleep until the sun was almost peeking over the horizon, his thoughts racing around ideas of weakness and courage and all sorts of other awful, painful things. 

He woke sullenly, went about his duties in a stony silence, with Rogers and the others giving him a respectful berth. He ate alone, cleaned his rifle alone, then sat in contemplative silence alone, the tin cupped in his hands while he debated the impact of reading the letter again. So much for forgetting, so much for letting the world flow past. It was as if he’d taken all his problems and stashed them in a great dark closet, all in a jumbled heap, and now the door had sprung open, spilling them all across the floor  
.   
He was breathless, exhausted, frustrated, lost and overwhelmingly frightened. He was a chipped cup, a frayed garment, a cracked leather satchel: still good enough to use, but for how long?

He bit his lip, struggled to collect his thoughts and let out a great shaky exhale. 

What was he going to do next?

It was the sound of obnoxious, open-mouthed breathing that shook him from his despondency. He gave himself a small shake and twisted around with an annoyed frown to glare at the man intruding on his silence.

It was a young man leaning over his shoulder, a young man that he recognized vaguely, one who still smiled broadly and laughed too much. He had taken to following Schofield, though he couldn’t tell why. He had a soft face and a name that had attached itself, inexplicably, to Schofield’s muddy memory. Lance Corporal Thomas Blake.

He could not remember the exact details of their first meeting, but it must have been long enough ago that he now just accepted his presence, yet not so long that the lad had grown frightened or cold. A fortnight, perhaps. Maybe a little longer. 

“Schofield, right?” It wasn’t really a question. The young man knew; he must have. He was a lance corporal, like himself, not to mention that Will had seen him hanging around most everyone. He surely knew every name in the company, and thought them all his friends. He nodded anyway, and the young man smiled brightly enough that he almost forgot what he was so sad about. 

He hardly noticed when Blake shifted closer, and although he tried to care, he found it didn’t raise his hackles in the way he had expected it to. It almost disappointed him, in a strange way. Was he really so lonely? Had his troubled thoughts really become so transparent?

“Whatcha got there, Schofield?” That struck a nerve, and Will gave him a long look. He did not particularly like the easy, friendly way the boy said his name. They weren't friends. Blake didn’t know him, and he didn’t intend to let the man know him.

“A-a letter.” He said, tucking the tin back in his breast pocket.

His smile softened. “Oh, lucky.” He grinned, the words spoken with the amicable jealousy of close companions. “I haven’t gotten anything in a while! Thought mum would surely be missing me by now.”

“Yes.” He smiled stiffly. “Surely.”

“A good one?” He leaned closer, shameless curiosity plain on his face. With a small frown, Schofield leaned backwards. 

“Um. Yes.” It wasn’t true. Well, yes, the letter had been nice enough, but that’s not how he felt was it? No matter, he thought. The boy didn’t need to know.

“Hm.” Even when Blake frowned it somehow didn’t truly look sad, more mildly disappointed, but in the most picturesque way possible. “Must be nice.”

Schofield squinted at him, and almost laughed aloud when he realized the young man was jealous. Well, perhaps not in the typical sense of the word, but he certainly seemed to want a letter of his own. Homesick, perhaps.

“Oh, well you’ll surely get one next time.” He supplied in a lame attempt at comfort. It sounded weak the moment it left his lips, but Blake once again broke into a smile.

“Surely! It’ll be nice to hear about Myrtle and the orchard.”

And then he was off, rambling on about dozens of things Schofield didn’t even try to pay attention to, he merely nodded and smiled when he thought it most appropriate until someone else called Blake’s name and he leapt to his feet and waved as he dashed off, beaming at Will as if they’d known each other their entire lives. 

He exhaled, and rather absently realized his mind had momentarily stopped its frantic rushing. For a moment, he’d been too focused on the strange Lance Corporal Blake to dwell on anything else. With a long sigh, he pushed himself to his feet and went about the rest of his day.

He ate with Rogers that night, and did his best to laugh at his friend’s jokes. He tried, hard enough, and it almost felt easy.  
\---  
He began to take notice of Blake after that. Not every time he saw the young man, and he never made a move to speak to or engage him outside of their duties beyond the occasional polite nod, but he was more aware of his presence, certainly. 

Blake seemed just as happy to spend his time with Will as he did with anybody else. He knew, of course, because he watched. For a short while, he was nearly consumed with a foolish jealousy that his companionship was no more meaningful to the young man than anyone else's, but he curtly reminded himself that it didn’t matter. They weren't even friends, anyway. But when Blake finally received a letter from his mother, it was Schofield he first scrambled to, reading the letter aloud as if her words alone could conjure up her presence. Will listened in silence, lacking the cruelty to do anything otherwise. 

They went to the front, not long after. He’d been dreading it, of course. How could you not? He stopped dreaming, first. The night was just one blank stretch, and he woke feeling exhausted yet restless. His hands shook, more often. He felt cold.

Tom, at first, seemed excited. Determined, certainly, but there was a willingness to it as well. Will found himself watching the young man, in the dugout, in the trenches, standing in the mud, cleaning his kit, somehow still so bright and shining despite it all. 

They settled in calmly enough. He bit the inside of his lip until it bled. He nodded and saluted and went about his duties, with Blake a step behind him, chatting all the way. Part of him wanted to listen. The other part was afraid to. It was a dull day, too tense to call slow, and too slow to call interesting. Better slow than deadly, he thought to himself. It didn’t appear as if Blake was doing much thinking at all. 

Sometimes, it was very quiet, as if the whole world was waiting for something to happen. Come. The silence seemed to call. See what will become of yourself. That was worse than slow, so he listened to Blake’s stories and opinions on nothing, and nodded and tried to smile when it seemed appropriate. 

It rained, in the night. The damp and cold served to further sink his mood, and he curled in on himself, following orders and nothing more. He claimed a small hollow for himself to rest in, and prepared for a long, dreary night. 

It began quietly, with the changing of watches, whispered conversations, pacing in the mud. The occasional crack or a rifle or splutter of a machine gun rang out, far away, then closer, then father again. He watched his breath clouding in the cold night air, and the rain briefly abated, allowing him to watch clouds gliding sluggishly across a sky that turned pale blue, then muddy gold, then indigo, and finally a tarnished black. 

His back was stiff, his hands were cold, his mind was racing too fast to allow his eyes to close, and still there was the sense of oddest peace that settled across his being. Perhaps it was the quiet sky, or the relative stillness in the trench, or the yellow light of a flickering lantern. 

Then the shelling started. He was sitting erect as soon as the first distant thud sounded, followed by the whistle far overhead, and the next, tremendous rolling sound of an explosion accompanied by a brilliant flash of light. One, two, three: they sounded down the line, one after the other, again and again.

The ground around him did not erupt into a plume of soil, bodies did not fall broken and screaming. It was the next trench over, but the shaking of the earth was strong enough to be felt, and the sound was too close for comfort. The other men noticed, of course they had. How could they have not? He breathed deep. It was his time to sleep, however little, however slim the chances. Best get something over nothing. If he was needed, somebody would wake him. Simple as that.

It was difficult to settle back down in his hollow. Not that he’d expected it to be easy, with the carnage all but knocking on his door. He was lucky, at least for a night. The shelling came no closer, and seemed to move further on, and within what seemed like perhaps an hour and a half, it quited to a far off rumble. He let his eyes close, hunched in on himself, and willed his mind to relax into sleep. 

It was raining when something woke him. He didn’t know what had dragged him from a fitful dream: somebody calling his name? A hand on his shoulder? Nothing at all? No matter what it was, there was a shadow looming over him and her jerked back with a start.

The shape didn’t move, and when he relaxed enough to really get a look he could see it was only a man. Of course, he thought, what else should it have been? Of course it was Lance Corporal Blake, his face now streaked with mud, staring down at him like he desperately wanted to ask him a question but couldn’t remember how to.

“Blake?” It was the first word that left his mouth, the first one he could think of. It came out too hard and pointed, but he couldn’t take it back. The question hung in the air between them, like a line thrown to him, and after a moment, he took it. 

“Hey, Scho.” The young man was shaking. He was still smiling, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes, and the angle of his mouth was as stiff as his posture. The fingers curled around the barrel of his gun were white and glossy with sweat. 

They stared at each other for a long while, rain dripping over the rim of their helmets, falling with pattering sound on the splintered duckboards and the bare, churned-up mud. In the dark, it was hard to make sense of his expression, half in deep shadow, half in the dull flickering light of a lantern. 

Far off, a series of distant booms cut through the monotonous clatter of rain and rush of wind. They came in quick succession, one after the other, and Tom winced at every one, his head flying up in fearful curiosity.

Instinctively, Schofield lunged forward, tackling him with a wet splat to the bottom of the trench. A cold rush of murky water immediately soaked his knees and forearms, and a small gasp of surprise left Tom’s mouth. In the dark, it was impossible to tell where one man ended and the other began. No rifle crack came, only the sound of rain and shaky breathing. 

With a relieved huff, he disentangled himself from the young man and stepped back, hunching over to offer him a hand. “Head down.” He remembered, though Tom must have surely already thought of it himself.

“Sorry.” It was soft, barely audible above the storm, and as Schofield curled into his muddy cavity pushed into the trench wall. 

Tom, his head bowed more dramatically than before, didn’t move. He stood there, his back and legs plastered with mud, dripping with rain, and stared back at Will.

Unthinking, he pushed at a sandbag and curled further in, making a small gap. “Need somewhere to sit?” He asked, and before the words even left his tongue, Tom was nodding furiously and all but clambering over him to get in. Once the shoving and shifting and grunting was all done with, the tiny hollow quickly went from cold and damp to hot and damp. Hardly an improvement in his mind, but Tom’s shivering slowly stilled. 

His back was pressed against Will’s shoulder: he had only to lift his arm and place it around the other man for them to embrace. Their heads were close enough he could easily hear the steady in and out of his breathing, despite the rain. Somehow, the closeness was not unbearable, but nor was it devoid of any awkwardness. So he curled up as much as he could, and when Tom nudged him to offer whistered thanks, he pretended he was asleep.  
\---  
It was an uneventful five days at the front, at least for Will. But when they were relieved and the whole company went weaving back up through the maze of ditches, Blake looked...different. It wasn’t new, he’d seen men like that before, but it hurt more, for some reason. It made him deeply sad. 

It wasn’t a lasting sorrow, at least. With every step they took from the trenches, a weight seemed to lift from the young man’s shoulders, and by the time they reached a stretch of abandoned pasture to camp in, he was nearly beaming.

He was smiling that broad, easy smile, and looked ready to break into dance. When they were dismissed, he toppled backwards into the grass with a laugh, and rolled around like a calf who’d never seen a field before. Will almost laughed at how utterly ridiculous it looked, but the smile that came to his face was one of relief, and he sat down a dozen paces away, just himself and his thoughts and all the mud he needed to get out of his clothes and kit.

The sun seemed full and bloated, hanging behind the clouds like it would drop and splatter sickly light across the world if one more shell shook it from its perch. It was warm on his face, and the breeze was clean, even if he could still hear the rattle of trucks and the distant thunder of artillery. He could breathe, again, and he and Blake had made it through. He couldn’t put a finger on why it mattered so much that Blake was healthy as well. He did his best not to think about it.

It was a shuffle that got his attention, like the day he’d been reading the letter. Blake was sitting, not a far ways off, but close enough that it must have been intentional. He caught him out of the corner of his eye, but pretended he had not noticed his presence and went on about his business.

Some 10 minutes later, a shuffle alerted him to movement, and he glanced over to find Blake closer. The whole pattern of events repeated itself not once, but four more times, until Blake had wordlessly shifted the whole length of the embankment and was nearly on top of him. 

Will put down his rifle with an annoyed huff and turned Tom. “I’m not a frightened colt, Blake.” he grunted. “If you want to sit with me, just say so.”

“Ah, well you could have invited me over earlier!” The young man chirped, sliding so close they were nearly touching at the shoulder. 

“I wasn’t planning on it.” He huffed. “I just thought that you looked like you wanted to…nevermind.”

“Hm?” It was so bright and cheerful, and it didn’t seem as if his withering glare was having any effect.

“Let it go. What….how can I help you?”

“Oh, I don’t think you can help me at all, least not right now.”

His face shifted into a deeper frown, and he stared hard at the young man. “Really, Blake, what do you want?”

He smiled sheepishly, fidgeting in awkward discomfort. “You just...looked lonely, is all. I thought you could use somebody to, y’know. Sit with you.”

There was a deep silence that followed his hesitant proclamation. Schofield blinked. “Oh.”

He couldn’t think of a better response, so he let Blake sit with him and fall asleep in the sun, and when they moved out the next morning, he felt better rested than he had in months.

He did his best not to think about that, either.

The days rolled into each other: weary feet, weary minds. Rain, sun, and everything in between. Blake remained, as gregarious as ever, his unflagging spirit a constant Will found he could quietly rely on. 

He was popular, that Tom Blake. Popular and well-liked. He had a way of getting people together, getting to listen and laugh. Will didn’t know where he got half of his stories, not that it mattered. It didn’t really matter if they were true or not, besides. They were good either way, and Will liked to listen, whether he was off by himself, as much as he could be, or part of the group.

Will could tell when he was getting ready to tell one, the questions he would ask, the way his voice would pitch, the way his other mates would gather and listen with rapt attention. It felt like a memory of a distant summer: boys gathered in a barn at dusk, not yet called back by their mothers, lit by lantern light, cozy in the straw and the presence of tall horses, weaving scary stories that were not half as spooky in hindsight. Tom was a mirror of that memory, with the look on his face like he knew a secret he was getting ready to share, standing in trampled grass with the crumpled remains of a shelled barn as a backdrop. 

He was telling one, now, in the midst of other dirty, weary men. But when he spoke, Tom came alive. The other men came alive. They were happy, interested, invested in something frivolous, pointless, and beautifully ridiculous.

Silently, Will shifted his head to listen. It was about a horse, he thought. A horse getting its head stuck in his mother’s kitchen window, then standing there like a great dumb brute as she tried to push it out before noticing the strawberries she had been washing. Or course, the creature had been delighted and had immediately proceeded to munch away. It was a comical image, for sure, accentuated by Blake’s impression. He hung his head like a great weary work horse and snorted, shaking it with the great whee-e-e-e sound of a whinny.

For a moment, he was transported far away, to a small country kitchen where a single mother struggled to pull a draft horse’s head out of a bowl of strawberries in a sink, while one son laughed and another dashed outside to fruitlessly push at the beast’s haunches. He couldn't help it, he broke into soft, breathy laughter.

When he looked up again, Tom had stopped speaking. He was looking back at Will, a strange expression on his face. With the story over, he departed the group quickly and crossed the grass to greet him. 

“Hey, Scho.” It was easy, happy, calm. 

He nodded back. “Blake. Interesting story, there.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. We did get it out eventually. Obviously, poor thing’s still not stuck in my house. It was the berries, in the end. We just bought a bunch outside.”

Again, he couldn’t help but chuckle. It was too easy to let himself do it, and it felt good, for once. When he looked over, Blake was smiling again, but there was something deeply earnest about it, something gentle. His own grin faltered. “What..what is it?”

He ducked his head, suddenly shy. “Got you to laugh, that’s all.”

Will spluttered on his own words, confused and taken aback and surprised all in one. “What? What do you mean by that? Of course I laugh, I'm not some sort of...monster?!?”

“Scho, Scho-” Blake held up a hand. “Never said you were. I just haven’t heard you laugh in...well, I think ever.”

“Oh.” he twisted his hands together and looked at his feet. “Well, I haven’t got much to laugh about.” he said slowly and seriously, not quite meeting Tom’s eye.

“Seems you do when I’m around.” 

That smile was back, the hopeful one, and Will sighed and relented. “Perhaps.” 

Tom’s presence was accepted wordlessly, after that. He thought no more on the matter, least of all because the young man was a lance corporal as well. If Blake wanted to spend his days trailing after him, so be it. His laughter no longer grated hard on his nerves, and Blake simply became a part of his life. The days, once again, spiraled into a repetitive circle. He sat in the grass, and waited, and drilled and cleaned the guns, and cleaned their clothes and marched and slept and sat in the grass and waited and waited and waited. 

He felt like he was holding his breath, letting it all build up in a great big knot until he was choking on it, until he couldn’t breathe.

He was holding it all back, he knew it, he could feel it in the way his calves shook when he lay down to sleep. His hands quivered sometimes, and he’d bite the inside of his cheek to find it, waiting for it to stop. 

It was all the waiting, the anticipation, the feeling of not knowing what was next: he hated it, with his whole being, more than he hated the mud and the cold and the way Collins cried at night.

That was the problem with Blake, he thought. The waiting didn’t bother him. He could still lay back and joke with his mates, tossing raisins in each other's mouths. He still cared to ask Will how he was doing, and for him the question carried no weight. 

His benign, gormless smile made jealousy twist in his stomach, braided together with anxiety and resentment. 

Tom did not seem to notice, and if he did, he was too polite and well mannered to say anything. That made Will feel all the more heartless for his dislike of the young man. In the end, the only thing that made sense was to avoid him as stringently as possible, or as much as the close quarters allowed.

The shelling that was the end of his resistance to companionship, cementing Blake into his heart in a way he found almost fitting, like in a book. He wasn’t surprised that it was the shelling that got to Blake, it got to most everybody. You couldn’t ignore it, you couldn’t run, you had a brief warning and that was it. Hard to say how the men put up with it, much less the horses. But then again, they put up with a great many discomforts, if the word could even do it justice. They were more than uncomfortable, and he knew that Blake felt the same. What was he, 20? Almost a boy. 

Blake sang before they went down in another trench, in a few weeks time. He was good, in a gentle, untrained way, like it came easily to him. It probably did, standing at the center of a whole pack of men, all of them looking at him. He probably enjoyed it. Will watched and listened, and in his face he could see the great mystery of Thomas Blake fall away. He was scared, same as he was. He was lonely and unsure and a million other things, same as he was. The singing, the stories, they made him happy, made it easier. 

He was just a man, only a man, and his simple singing nearly broke Will’s heart in a way that almost felt like happiness.

He found Will later, and of course he did. The young man trusted him, and enjoyed his presence. He came up in silence, standing beside him, the two of them breathing in tandem, close enough that their shoulders touched. 

Tom’s hand briefly twisted in his own, squeezed once, then slipped away. He cleared his throat and looked away, as if ashamed, but his breathing was even and his shoulders no longer shook.

After a beat, he turned his head and met Schofield’s gaze with an arresting expression he could not name. Trust, perhaps? Or gratitude? “Thanks, Scho. I’m glad you’re here.”

He stared back at Tom, unsure of how to respond, lost for a moment in a vast mire of pent-up emotion and questions he didn’t know how to answer. “I…Of course, Blake.” he said at last. Better to say something than nothing. “Then he added as an afterthought, “I’m glad you’re here too.”

At that, Tom broke into a broad, beaming smile. “You’re a real mate, Scho.” And that, for some reason, felt as it split his heart in two, breaking open some forgotten emotion he’d left sealed off for months. It felt like peace.

As far as he was concerned, was the end of it. Thomas Blake had won, in the end. He’s squeezed his way into the cracks the war had left in his heart, and after a relentless few weeks, he’d surrendered to his charming smile and humorous stories. In hindsight, it was plain to see why the likable young man made him happy. 

It was easy to be around Blake, he thought. Easy to listen to his stories, easy to relax with him. In a world where everything seemed to be a trial, where so many contending emotions threatened to overwhelm him, it was good to have something easy. Something nice, something that made sense. 

In return, Blake seemed perfectly happy to spend almost all of his time with him. He seemed to trust Schofield, and that, more than anything, brought him peace. 

As pleasant as he was to talk to, sometimes it was nice to just...rest, to just do nothing and stare at the sky. He liked when Blake slept, he liked the feeling of closeness. He liked that Tom liked to be near him, quiet, just the two of them and the silence. 

Now, the front was near, too close for comfort, but his back was resting against a sturdy tree and wildflowers were bobbing their heavy heads and Blake was beside him, fidgeting to find a comfortable position and flattening all the surrounding grass in the process.

“Sleeping?” he asked quietly.

Tom paused and smiled up at him. “Yeah. You as well?”

He sighed, closed his eyes for a brief moment and let his body relax against the trunk. “In a little while.”

“You’ll tell me if there's food coming? I'm positively starving.” He patted his stomach for emphasis. The gesture brought a small to his lips, and judging by the twinkle in Tom’s eye, that had been his intended reaction.

He nodded and set his helmet to the side, smoothing a hand over his sweaty hair. “Of course.”

“Right then.” Tom flopped back and shut his eyes, sliding the helmet over his face with a directness that left no room for further conversation. He clearly intended to sleep for a good long while, and was somehow going to manage to look comfortable while doing so.

Will eased himself back with a sigh, pausing briefly to adjust a buckle digging into his back. The wind had died down to a faint breeze and accompanied by the faint chatter of the other resting soldiers, it became a gentle, calming noise. He let his eyes slip closed, and watched the flowers wave and bob between barely parted lashes.

Tom, despite the state of his uniform, looked perfectly at peace, his chest rising and falling gently. Will sighed, repositioned himself and let his eyes unfocus. At last, seeing Tom’s ease left no trace of jealousy, no trace of bitterness. It wasn’t enough to forget the distant fall of thunder, but it was enough to rest for a brief moment, and be content with the fact that Thomas Blake was by his side. 

He could see it, a brief vision in the back of his mind’s eye: a far country, dripping with bright sun, wind in the meadow, grass waving like waves in the sea. There was a lone tree, atop a hill, and two tall horses, free from war and all its troubles, grazing on the sweet grass under a wide sky. All that remained was the one, the other and the peace that stretched between.


End file.
